Evil isn't complicated, it's easy

“My biggest disappointment is that in a movie with ‘Evil is Complicated’ as its summary line, it only lets us see the titular character that way.”Maleficent is the backstory of Disney’s most iconic villain from Sleeping Beauty. For advertising purposes, Disney chose to use #eviliscomplicated whenever the movie was referred to on social media. This tag line set up a false expectation based on a fallacy that people are willing to believe because it is easier to believe that evil has a reason for being. While motivations may be complicated, evil is simple.“All that is required for evil to prevail is for good men to do nothing.” “Complicated” is used to describe situations that people do not want to define because the actual definition would hurt. By making it “complicated” it becomes justifiable. Someone who is in a “complicated” relationship is actually in a relationship that is hurting one or both partners or someone outside of the relationship. Being in love with someone who does not return the feeling but strings the lover along, or loving someone who is married and does return the feeling, or loving someone who is abusive isn’t complicated. “The heart wants what it wants.” These relationships can be labeled, and once they are the relationship will have to change in some way. Evil is anything that causes unnecessary harm to another living creature. It is the degrees of evil that make life difficult. In Les Miserables, Jean Valjean steals bread to feed his family. The evil of stealing bread for someone who was starving is a lesser evil than the system that created the starvation. It seems justifiable, but that does not make it less wrong. If people can remove the complication of evil, and it usually involves greed of some sort, life becomes imminently more agreeable for everyone. To eliminate evil, good men must do something. Good men could not sit by and let others starve, let families be torn apart or let injustice occur. Good men will act to make the world a better place for them and their families, and good men will realize that the only real evil in the world comes from those who are heartless. It is difficult to have empathy for someone who is not a person or has no personal relevance. In the Twilight Zone adaptation of a Richard Matheson story, a couple is given a box and told that if one of them presses the button, the couple will get $200,000 and someone they do not know will be killed. When the couple is given the money and the box taken back, the couple asks what will happen to the box. The man who came for the box assures the couple that the box will be given to someone they don’t know. During the episode, the couple wrestled with the idea of killing someone, but the concept was abstract enough that when faced with the concrete of cash and rising bills, they decide to kill. People make those same decisions every day. The more people drive, the more resources they waste, the more food they eat… The list is long and laborious, and there is no way in society as it is currently constituted to get away from causing harm, but people can choose to be more like Hazel Grace from The Fault in Our Stars, who was vegetarian because she wanted to do the least amount of damage to life that she could while she was still alive.Read the movie review for Maleficent here'Maleficent' strikes a cultural nerveRead 'Frozen' and 'Maleficent' create instant clicheRead about the Maleficent sneak peek at Disney California AdventureEvil is simpleMaleficent changes her characterIndustrial destruction, nature, science fiction, fantasy and mankindAn alternate ending for 'Maleficent'?

Comments

David says: Except evil does have a reason for being. Evil is a response to pain and fear. Understanding why someone comes to make evil choices does not have to mean excusing those choices, but it can illuminate the path to forgiveness, healing, and redemption. The Maleficent of Disney's original sleeping beauty, what we think of as an "evil person", doesn't exist. No one rubs their hands together cackling wildly trying to decide how best to be evil today. People do, however, lash out because they experience evil or loss. That's what I took "EvilIsComplicated" to mean. It means there is context to evil, and in understanding how someone overcame their own conscience to do evil means there's the possibility for that to change. Unfortunately, while Disney touched on that with the character of Maleficent in the movie of the same name, the creators failed to see the idea through into the rest of story. Evil doesn't come only from heartless men. None of us is innocent of some evil, though we can rationalize them as small evils. Complete heartlessness is a destination on the end of a road traveled by making many evil choices, stripping away our empathy because we are seeking to protect ourselves.